A Possible Methodology of Research in Scholar Evaluation. Evaluation Theoretical and Methodological Approaches
Abstract
Under the interest of educational research, as Theory of Evaluation, school evaluation, stage and important process of teaching approach has benefited from "change", "transformation", "rearrangement", "transfer", so that the "sample test", evaluation, criteria, grading result became components of a process whose analysis they matter in terms of refining, straightening the educational program and student further development. Therefore, acquisitions, academic progress, social implications are values pursued by the Evaluation Theory. Not just
Keywords: Assessmentscholar evaluationvalues pursued by evaluation theory
1. Introduction
The axiological Component of the Evaluation Theory and Methodology (for the purposes of issuing
judgments of value through the evaluation process), the complexity as a process (towards approaching
the cognitive, affective and behavioural areas), an interlocking (perichoresis) of processes (teaching
and learning) and reporting the contribution of each of the processes in explaining the results obtained
in the evaluation function, feedback (feedback) function, dominant in the field of communication and
information, but also to improve, optimize and intervention are the specificities and priorities that make
the Evaluation Theory and Methodology a recent pedagogic branch, but with history, with its own
methodology and areas of competence that need to be explored.
2. Value and Evaluation
Assigning a degree of utility and opportunity to an object, action or attitude or a person conceptually
defines the
options system of each person or group. In the area of human interaction, the value is the dominant
achieving and takeover
characterizes the implicit
Fact-value distinction is at the heart of epistemological debates on the possibility of objectivity in
science and beyond.
"Observations made on human actions have led to the following: the more the activity is complex,
the more the evaluative actions become necessary (...) and amplifies roles" (Radu, 2008, p. 9).
Observing the human interaction evaluation as an objective fact, Radu sees in the logic of things the
"interest", during the activity, and finally, to the extent that it achieved its purpose and as "legitimate
desire for achievement targeted goals and need to regulate the activity ".
Evaluation is a social and human systems own managerial action that requires the reporting of
results obtained in a certain activity to a set of criteria specific to the field in order to make an optimal
decision. (Cristea, 1998, p. 203).
There is no
social sciences operate with. Instead there is a great variety of interpretations of the concept,
depending on the targeted purpose and objectives, on methodologies applied or even on the
understanding of some terms attached to evaluation.
Evaluation may include "determination of value or success in reaching predetermined targets", so
reporting to what has been designed. It includes at least the following steps: formulating the objectives,
establishing criteria for measuring success, determination and explanation the degree of success,
recommendation for future activities” (Thomson, 1975, in Mătăuan, 1995, p. 65).
Sometimes evaluation can serve to "redefine the means to be used to achieve the objectives or even
redefine certain objectives according to research results" (Mătăuan, 1995, p. 66).
In another context, the teacher D. Lawton said that "the decision involves
(Lawton, 1981, p. 187). He regarded the time of the assessment phase as a step of the pedagogical
approach, complex process carried out over time, being needed for other three specific features:
"evaluation is there to provide information on the likely success or failure of educational programs (or
persons); this information is or should
educational decisions should be taken in a broader context than the school or educational institution "
(Lawton, p. 188).
In conclusion, Webster`s Dictionary defines evaluation as "examining and judging the value,
quality, quantity, significance, level or condition of something".
3. Evaluation Conceptualization in Education
Conceptually,
discipline studying evaluation system in school activities, and as process, evaluation has traveled stages
as edumetria (Quality Measurement in educational evaluation), psycho-diagnosis, economy of
education, educational planning, to the point of Theory and Methodology of Assessment.
Starting from the examination and scoring, it was agreed that the understanding of assessment as
complex activity of knowledge and of "forms of value judgments about student learning process and
product." (Manolescu, 2010, p. 17). The transition was made from the main objective of making a
systematic study of examination practices and, more general, of evaluation to underline the role and
importance of different factors. (Abernot, 1996, p. 59) that may affect results (docimology, a branch of
pedagogy discipline that has as research object systematic study of examinations, especially scoring
systems, the behavior of those who consider and review (De Landsheere, 1979, p. 67)), the "issue of
integrative value judgments, according to some precise criteria, predetermined, in order to determine
the efficiency / effectiveness of actions, processes, leading to educational decisions, with positive
implications for personal, academic and social development "(Opris, 2010, p. 17).
Thus, evaluation in education is and will be within the transfer from the involved component
analysis "concerned about the measurement and assessment in learning results value" (Manolescu,
2010, p. 19), to the understanding of logic governing the teaching process.
Knowing the mechanism / mechanisms of evaluative approach makes the transition to the Theory
and Methodology of the Assessment.
Practice the evaluation proves that Theory is "super-ordered" to docimology, to be more specific to
docimologic evaluation. We are seeing a "meta-order" as integrative (that it complements,
supplements) and integrator (that it harmonizes various elements, structures throughout the process) of
the word.
Thus, we are witnessing, as noted in a collective study by American researchers in educational and
paradigmatic research, to the growing interest on the status and position of qualitative research in
educational research to the quantitative and statistical research promoted as a standard of government
educational research institutions (Lather, 2006, p. 2), but also to the correlation between educational
research paradigms represented by educational research world and the public policies making process.
At the macro level, sociological talking, there are to be pursued social effects of education by
evaluating the education system, the curriculum, the processes of teacher training, learning products,
responsibility that belongs to specialized institutions and individuals that are not directly involved in
teaching students.
Influences on public policy generated by disputes and discussions on the paradigm had a direct
implication on an aspect often neglected by the scientific community:
2011, p. 63).
Starting from the idea of paradigm, not only because we live in "the era of paradigms" - M.
Manolescu (2010, p. 20) proposes a
"difficulties and pitfalls" (critical), to the attempted explanation of evaluation results (explanatory), to
the concern stage to increase the objectivity of the evaluation degree (conceptual and technical
contributions such as theory of generalizing), and currently in the evaluation stage conceived and
understood as evaluative activity (meta-cognitive mechanisms and processes).
Research on docimology paradigm is considering approaches and uses "tools specific to research in
the social sciences" ("art assessment" as called by S. P. Hayes), and as expressed by M. Manolescu
(2004, p. 23), we should understand school evaluation as a process that interferes (overlap to compose
and combine effects), remain interdependent (stay connected and condition each other), their cognitive
correlates with the meta-cognitive (concept processes).
4. A Possible Methodology of Research in Scholar Evaluation
Gilbert de Landsheere sees the ideal in school evaluation as "legally accurate scientifically and
morally fair" (De Landsheere, 1975, Introduction).
In Semiotics, talking about value, sign, meaning and significance, Fr. de Saussure meant two
referential: position compared to other signs (signifier) and relationship with other signs (signified).
We can talk about roles and relationships of those involved in evaluative process.
Emil Păun (2006, pp. 3-13), speaking about rearrangement of teaching, which he saw as a
construction process of knowledge, distinguished between
("process of transformation, interpretation and redrafting of scientific knowledge consists of different
fields of knowledge, transposable not transferable" )-anything else than popular science, the one which
tries to make science more accessible, understandable to the public - and
("assembly of negotiated successive transformations suffered by the formal curriculum within the
teaching-learning process, during teacher-student relationship ").
Approaching the reality of the problems the teacher is facing ("curriculum and class management, in
terms of teaching"), the above mentioned author talks about context (specificity, particular theoretical
and conceptual space and therefore it is not transferable!), contextualization (acc. to Astolfi and
Develay), and de-contextualization (new curriculum meaning, which can be absolute, because it
ignores the initial reviewer!).
This is what W. Pinar proposed by "curriculum empowered and emancipated to provide
understanding and change".
Before him, with an academic approach, J. Dewey spoke about how can be "constructed,
deconstructed and reconstructed the knowledge".
In terms of scientific research, both teacher and student are influenced by many variables: from the
initial formation, meanings and significance that gives them the aims of education (the definition he
gives) to the opinions of colleagues, the competition where the discipline he teaches stands related to
other disciplines and included in the catalog, the teacher case and from the representation the students
have in respect of their teachers, which, by the way, plays
suffered by the formal curriculum in schools, and to the idea of “assessment pursued utilitarian and
pragmatic” (only subjects of final exam cycle are pursued, one that gives access to a higher cycle!).
Andre Levy, professor of social psychology at the University of Paris, concerned about being the
way it is realized the rearrangement in the assessment process, said that "the assessment concludes that
the effect of a mental operations of simplification and reduction and it translates as granting an unique
grade, which is the result of an arbitrary compromise between several quality assessments of a different
order (Levy, 2003, p. 16). (...)
This process, common in all areas, is particularly highlighted in education. Thus, a student will be
judged differently if we consider his or her participation, the seriousness of his work, his efforts for
progress, disordered behaviour or concentrated in the classroom, ease of speech, his intelligence, his
activity and his results to different disciplines.
The closer he gets to the professional world and better understands his place in the hierarchy, his
position in relation to other students indicates his "value" on the market.
To determine that, we must establish a
two places at once). How this share is conceived to some extent is at the discretion of the teacher, but
the margin is narrow, largely determined by the value system that prevails in society and in schools, in
particular.
Thus, each student is assigned and identified with its place in the classroom (in the physical sense)
and tends to identify with himself. (...) The consequences of such labelling are particularly important
that this place will be difficult to change throughout his student career because it influences decisions
made about him and often confirms his behaviour."
Psychologist Levy notes the importance of the social function of evaluation:
"The evaluation carries a strong social dimension. Any grade given to a student gives him a "public
character". Assisted by other grades, it (the mark) becomes qualified. Taken together into a completed
and formalized course made official through an exam or competition, it contributes to obtaining a
social status, an employment, a salary ... " (Enjeux sociaux de l'évaluation occultés).
It is equally interesting and equally important to assess cognitive processes and learning products
remarks related to the existence in parallel of the
enseigne" according to Chevalard), of the
personalized curriculum ("le savoir appris et retenu", idem), and the
invisible, instrumental, embellished (belonging to the "school ethos and habitus" acc. to P. Bourdieu).
Professor E. Păun identified a "didactic contract" (within the anthropological meaning of the word)
when referring to the teacher-student relationship: "the agreement reflects a system of expectations"
(the expectation being one of the most important forms of collective thinking, acc. to Mausse).
The idea of pedagogic contract is developed by M. Manolescu (2002, p. 24) who sees school
evaluation as an "educational relationship in which the student becomes a full partner", the high degree
of transparency (in setting the criteria) helping the student to be aware of his evolution. This is because
"school evaluation is a meta- process, it is addressed to a developing growing human being, who has
not yet completed the process of development".
Within the educational psychology it is spoken about the
and consolidation of knowledge (acc. to J. Piaget), and meta-cognitive knowledge is used to manage
evaluation approach in terms of student self-assessment, student knowledge about his own knowledge
also being very important (meaning "knowledge building and reconstruction" promoted by J. Dewey).
From the perspective of the other actor involved in the assessment, the assessor, it is important the
role and function he chooses pregnantly:
activities centered on the student, when the teacher encourages (direct and constructive feedback )
supports "student performance compared with a pre-established threshold of success" (Meyer, 2000, p.
25), with adjustment function, information and confirmation, improvement, supporting the effort of
self-evaluation (Manolescu, 2010, p. 62), and
learning facilitator, he suggests (using active listening, "to learn" instead of the verb "to memorize"),
and the student is aware of the need to achieve the criterion of success and product (ibid). There must
be evaluated all components of a learning outcome, not only knowledge!
Structural elements or school evaluation variables, "the evaluation radiography”, can be operational
by answering several key questions:
-What is the evaluation made for? (functions, what is the signification the assessment has?)
-reported to what? (references, criteria, standards assessment);
-for whom? or what? (recipient or subject to evaluation);
-how do we design and coordinate actions to ensure "success in accomplishing task" and "success to
obtain a good product"? (acc. to J. J. Bonniol) (strategies); what are the steps to be followed? (stages-
operations, evaluation actions);
-how are we going to evaluate? (methods, techniques, procedures, assessment tools).
A possible evaluation device:
-Planning assessment:
• Describe how assessments will be applied – e.g. online, written or practical
• Establish the assessment schedule
- Establish learning performance criteria
- Selection and establishing learning assessment tools
-Check the assessment plan (pre-test)
- Appreciating responses in accordance with the criteria
- Feedback comments.
Establishing an evaluation strategy in education is equivalent to fix when evaluating, in what form,
what methods and means, how you value the information obtained. "The reform of student
achievement should occur towards achieving a comprehensive assessment, based on nationally uniform
criteria for assessing student performance and not to revise and improve the traditional system" (Stoica,
2001, p. 70).
For this, "we cannot talk of a didactic sequence, where there is not an evaluative component" (Opris,
2010, p. 18). Therefore, modern teaching sees it as a fundamental function of the educational process
and places it in an organic relationship with teaching and learning (ibidem).
In my personal opinion the definition above is comprehensive and enlightening related to
considerations about the
of assessment (structural elements or variables), and the entire evaluation device are under the sign of
concepts of motivation and engagement (motivating reporting and engaged choice) that characterizes
the concept of value.
Value determines a person to choose depending on the criterion he sets for the purpose he has, using
strategies and means, using the outcomes of his actions to achieve the goal. The channel is value-
evaluation and integrative view that M. Manolescu presents upon evaluation as process and meta-
process is applicable not only in education but also in other human approaches “intention to measure
the effects of human intervention in the social sphere ", (Măţăuan, 1995, p. 16).
Trying to "methodological" approach of some concepts related to the evaluation theory, the "linked"
and "integrative” manner used, "interdisciplinary" presentation were made from the desire to offer a
point of view that should be theorizing upon educational evaluative approach.
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Cite this article as:
Lazar, E. (2016). A Possible Methodology of Research in Scholar Evaluation. Evaluation Theoretical and Methodological Approaches. In A. Sandu, T. Ciulei, & A. Frunza (Eds.), Logos Universality Mentality Education Novelty, vol 15. European Proceedings of Social and Behavioural Sciences (pp. 504-511). Future Academy. https://doi.org/10.15405/epsbs.2016.09.65